out of service (disconnected)
by writerdragonfly
Summary: Patrick Sheppard hadn't wanted his father's business, but more than that, he doesn't want history to repeat itself. Some things are inevitable. (Others, however, are not.) -x- Set pre-series through S1x01.
**Author's Note:**

 _A couple days ago, I posted this on tumblr:_  
 _"Suddenly tempted to write a Stargate Atlantis fic set in or before season one, from the viewpoint of Patrick Sheppard, inspired by I Don't Know You Anymore - Savage Garden. But also a whole little collection of fics about missed calls and disconnected notices."_

 _Aaaand, then I did it. I actually expected probably one little scene where Patrick calls John and gets a disconnected notice, but apparently Patrick Sheppard wanted a backstory? I don't even know._

 _Although this contains background relationships of Patrick/various women as well as John/Nancy (and John's marriage goes the way of canon), the focus is on Patrick & John's relationship and has been tagged such._

 _Dedicated to leiari over on tumblr, for being generally awesome for my self-confidence when I first pitched the idea._

* * *

 **-x-**

 **It starts like this:**

Patrick Sheppard is twenty years old and out on his own doing whatever he wants whenever he wants to-he's on top of the world and nothing can stop him-and then his father dies and he's suddenly wrenched back into the family business that his brother was supposed to inherit.

He learns the ropes and rules of the business world pretty quickly, (remembers some of them from long nights with his father), falls into place as the attractive bachelor president of one of the United State's major utilities companies.

It's not the life he wanted-not even close. But it's not a _bad_ life, not like he thought it would be.

Just, different.

His younger brother graduates from the Harvard-Radcliffe Program in Business Administration two years later, and at first it's a good thing. Johnny was intended for this, supposed to be the one who took over.

But as much as Johnny wants to be in charge and as much as their father had meant for it to be that way, he doesn't find the decisions easy to make like Patrick does, and well, the board can see that.

Patrick had never wanted the company. He and his father fought about it often when he was a teenager, but ultimately his father acquiesced. Because Johnny _did_ want it, and he was willing to do anything to prove it to their father.

Once he has it though, he finds that he can't imagine what kind of life he would have led otherwise.

(Sometimes he still dreams of black grease on his fingers, his wrists deep in the body of an engine tearing things about to see how they work and rebuilding them to work better, thinking " _this is what I was meant for._ ")

 **-x-**

 **And it goes like this:**

When Johnny is twenty-six, he's struggling to get his own company off the ground. He refuses to talk to Patrick, refuses to come back to Sheppard Utilities at all.

Patrick had never wanted to take his brother's life from him, but it happened anyway. He got the job and the wealth and the companionship. He even got the beautiful pregnant wife and huge back yard.

And Johnny is the one who suffers for it.

Patrick can't give Johnny what he wants, no matter how much he wants to.

The company flourishes, Johnny's does not.

Patrick's brother doesn't make it to twenty-seven.

Two days after the funeral, Patrick's wife gives birth to a baby boy.

They name him John, and Patrick loves his son something desperately.

 **-x-**

John is a quiet baby, a curious little thing that stares and reaches out but rarely screams. He's nothing at all like Patrick's brother had been, Patrick thinks, and wonders if that's a good thing.

His wife Elisabeth gets sick when John is three months old, she gets sick and suddenly Patrick is a full time father on top of being the head of a company that only continues to sprawl.

Lissy dies before John is six months old, and Patrick feels like a part of him has died too.

He's lost so much so quickly that he's not sure he will be able to survive it.

Except, well, John needs him now, doesn't he?

Patrick failed Johnny, he can't fail his son too.

 **-x-**

John's nanny is a decade younger than Patrick and full of vivacious energy that Patrick doesn't understand.

He doesn't know how it happens, just that one day she's just the nanny and the next Patrick is having his secretary arrange a wedding.

 _John needs a mother,_ he tells himself the night before they're due to marry, and _I can't do this alone._

Bridget makes a beautiful bride, with her dark hair and pale skin. Her ears are even pointed like Lissy's had been.

They marry, and Patrick plays the role of dutiful husband as best he can manage.

It's not a love match, not for him. Lissy had been his high school sweetheart and finding her again after taking over for his father had felt like destiny and fate.

Bridget is a choice, but he thinks she's a smart one.

 **-x-**

David is born in the spring a few weeks before John's second birthday and he's exactly the number of days apart from John as Patrick and his brother had been.

Patrick is afraid of what it might mean.

He doesn't want history to repeat itself.

He can't let it.

 **-x-**

 **And it happens like this:**

Patrick had loved engines growing up, and Johnny had loved briefcases. Patrick wanted to be an engineer or a mechanic or design planes. Johnny wanted to be just like their father.

It should have stayed that way. Maybe then Patrick wouldn't be alone, no family except his sons and his wife.

John is six when he says to his father, calm as can be, "I wanna fly."

Patrick makes a choice, then and there, and says, "Don't be stupid, John. You're going to work for me."

 **-x-**

When John is ten and David is eight, Patrick divorces Bridget, who takes off with a great deal of money and her lover.

He's not upset about her leaving. He hadn't loved her, not the way she'd wanted (but oh, how _he'd_ wanted to!)

Or rather, he's not upset about her leaving for _him_ , but for the boys.

She's the only mother they've known, and it must seem sudden to them.

(Sometimes Patrick thinks John seems more upset about their housekeeper-Regina-leaving with her, and wonders if that means something.)

 **-x-**

Patrick remarries, of course. It's to be expected in the circles he's become an ingrained part of (the _same_ circles he wanted _nothing_ to do with as a child _.)_

His third wife isn't any more of a love match than Bridget had been. It's just business, and they both know it.

And well, Anne has no desire for children outside the two she's just become step-mother too.

John goes to boarding school just after his eleventh birthday. Anne says he had asked for it, Patrick tries to believe it's true.

But he knows the lie.

Patrick divorces Anne when David is ten, and doesn't remarry.

John comes home from boarding school just after the paperwork is submitted.

He's twelve and says to Patrick, "I want to be a pilot."

And Patrick says, "Don't be stupid, John."

 **-x-**

John breaks his arm playing football when he's sixteen and Patrick thinks, _finally_ , because surely John will stop trying to grow wings instead of following his footsteps.

But then, John ends up in an advanced mathematics class, and comes home with all these ideas on how to _make_ his own wings instead.

 **-x-**

John is seventeen and five months shy of graduating high school when Patrick says, "I'd like you to attend the Harvard Business School but if you'd like to jump right into work, there's an internship with one of our smaller companies."

And John says, "I'm going to Stanford."

And Patrick hears, "I'm getting my MBA at Stanford."

But John means, "I can't be the son you want, I'm doing what I want."

 **-x-**

John accepts a full-ride scholarship to Stanford, early acceptance, and sneaks out of the house three weeks into the summer.

He hitchhikes the entire way to campus, and Patrick finds this out when one of the people who carried him a leg of the journey blackmails him.

Patrick ends up at the college with every intention of dragging John home, but John refuses to budge.

Their fight is loud and angry, just like every other fight they've had since John was a kid and said "one day, I'm going to fly."

John doesn't come home for six months.

 **-x-**

John comes home on his winter break with a smile on his face that only wavers when he catches Patrick's eyes. It... _hurts_... but Patrick hasn't let that kind of thing show in a long time.

David spends most of the break pestering his brother, and for once, John lets him.

It's good until it isn't.

"How long do you think your MBA will take you?" Patrick asks over dinner two days before the New Year.

And John freezes, and Patrick's heart nearly stops.

"I'm not," John says, the knuckles of his right hand going white as his fingers tighten around his fork.

"You're not sure...?" Patrick says, even though he knows what John means.

"I'm not getting an MBA. I'm never getting an MBA."

"Once you're done wasting time at school then I expect you to come learn the business then," Patrick says, and immediately regrets it.

Because he remembers being eighteen and positive he wasn't going to be his father, remembers every argument being further fodder to do the opposite.

"I'm not wasting time!" John yells, and his fork clanks loudly when it smacks the table.

John's chair nearly falls over.

And Patrick says, "Don't be stupid, John, you listen to me, you will be in charge of this company one day and I will not have you-"

"I don't _want_ your stupid company!" John says.

Patrick hears, "You aren't trying hard enough to make me want it," and "History is doomed to repeat itself."

And David says, "Johnny, you don't mean that!"

And Patrick hears, "I want, I want it though!"

 **-x-**

John sends David a birthday card in the spring and calls his brother once a week.

He hangs up if Patrick tries to say anything.

 **-x-**

John doesn't come home for two years.

When he does, it's to say, "As soon as I finish my degree, I'm going full time with the Air Force."

And Patrick says, "Don't be stupid, John, no son of mine-"

And never does get to finish that sentence.

 **-x-**

Patrick meets Nancy by accident. He's in DC for a meeting, and he hasn't seen his son in four years, and he bumps into her in line at a restaurant.

And he says, "Pardon me, Miss."

And she says as she blinks at him, "You're John's dad!"

 **-x-**

Sometimes Nancy calls him when John's had a particularly close call. Sometimes, she calls just to talk about John's everyday life.

She's the one who invites him to the wedding.

 **-x-**

They have a long, dragged out fight in the reception hall that starts with, "Don't be stupid, John," and ends with Nancy in tears and Patrick with a black eye.

It also leaves Patrick with far more regrets than he ever imagined.

 **-x-**

Two months later, he names David in his line of succession.

And David doesn't falter at all.

 **-x-**

David isn't Johnny, and maybe Patrick should have realized that a long time ago.

 **-x-**

Nancy shows up on his doorstep eighteen months after the wedding.

"John's getting served with the divorce papers," she admits, "and I thought you might want to be there for him."

 **-x-**

He calls twice a day for a week. There isn't ever an answer.

 **-x-**

He starts dating a widowed woman six years older than him a year later. Lydia has no children, despite a lifelong desire to have them.

They don't marry, but Patrick loves her with a ferocity he remembers from Elisabeth all those years ago.

Lydia says to him, "you sound like you were being a huge asshole," and "maybe you should have told him about the man he's named after," and "don't wait until it's too late."

Patrick writes letters he never sends, calls John's number hundreds of times before hanging up.

He keeps track of his son through favors and discreet inquiries.

But he remembers John's wedding, remembers the nasty things he'd said and the anger he'd felt. And the guilt is so much that he never manages to actually say a word in apology at all.

 **-x-**

John gets a black mark and Patrick does everything he can to make sure that John still gets to fly. There's a catch, though.

John can never know Patrick saved him.

Patrick doesn't know if that's a good thing for John, or not.

( _Most days_ , he thinks, _maybe it **is**_.)

 **-x-**

 **And this is how it ends:**

Patrick gets word that John's been stationed stateside. That John is in Colorado.

He finds the apartment easily enough, because this is what money buys.

No one answers. The nameplate on the mailbox reads JS in his son's careful scrawl, but no one answers the door.

Patrick writes a note, slips it under the door and hopes ( _prays_ ) that John will see it.

He stays in Colorado Springs for four days. At the end of the fourth day, he returns to the apartment to see the landlord pulling the name from the slot.

"Didn't your tenant just move in?"

"Oh, Mr. Sheppard? He was only here a few days. Temporary reassignment. Happens quite frequently around here. He left five days ago, but I've been busy with the other properties."

And Patrick says, "Oh."

 **-x-**

David calls him when he's just gotten back in the house back home, his daughter-in-law speaking softly in the background.

"I still have John's cell number, Dad," David tells him, "I'm sorry he wasn't there."

 **-x-**

Patrick waits three days, then he dials John's number.

It's July 2004. John is thirty seven.

" _The number you have dialed is out of service or has been disconnected. Please try again."_

 **-x-**

 _John,_

 _I never told you about your uncle, Johnny._

 _I never told you I was proud of you._

 _I never told you..._

 _I'm sorry, son._

 _I love you._


End file.
